The Process

Luke is getting into mid toddlerdom. It's not like I can prop him in front of a toy and he'll be intrigued for a half hour any more, he needs INTERACTION. He's developing his creativity and imagination, mostly by doing things with his cars.

I've been intent on learning how to provide Luke with opportunities to learn and explore, and have been listening to people who have degrees in the toddler mindset. They've told me that art in toddler world is about the exploration of materials and how they interact, how can the child cause something to look and feel different, not a product. You know, it's about THE PROCESS.

So I dutifully ran off to the craft store and bought foam, paper, stickers, paint, pompoms, popsicle sticks, and glue. Luke and I sat down today and "explored".

Oh, exploring.

Exploring seemed to involve a lot of yelling at me for not doing it right. We used sticks to paint the paper, but when I tried to encourage fingerpainting, Luke yelled. We glued scraps to paper, and then Luke removed them all. We stuck stickers on paper, and then Luke removed them all. As an end product, I'm left with a somewhat sticky piece of foam with paint on it. I'm not looking for a product to look like something SPECIFIC, but the disassembling of the potential product disheartens me.

"See those glue spots? He had put four squares in a line. But he ripped them up."

And still, we chugged along creatively for awhile, until he attempted to move about a bit more - covered in paint and glue and stickers - and stopped being willing to allow me to assist him in any way. So creative craft time was abruptly cut short, and tears and screaming ensued as I washed him off.

I hope The Process gets less difficult.